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As so-called “momentum stocks” and other overvalued equities fall out of favor, the stocks of solid companies that pay regular dividends are once again proving attractive to investors seeking steady income from their portfolios.

For some bizarre reason, dividends fell out of fashion in the United States a few years back – but the amounts now being paid out in dividends mean the stocks that pay them are once again in big demand.

Dividends are capitalism at its best and it’s hard to believe they ever went out of fashion in a place with the instincts of the United States.

A recent report by Henderson Global Investors provided some juicy numbers. Last year alone, U.S. companies paid roughly $302 billion in dividends, up more than 50 percent from $197 billion in 2010.

Even better, Henderson said that in 2013, the world’s publicly traded companies paid $1 trillion in annual dividends for the first time. That's one thousand billion dollars just for holding the stock.

And get this: between 2009 and 2013, the world’s public companies paid about $4.4 trillion in dividends, Henderson said.

The no-brainer in all of this is that with companies around the world currently sitting on roughly $7 trillion of cash, according to data, the pressure from shareholders to keep paying the dividends is only going to get stronger.

Talk about an income. Get on board the dividend express. As a shareholder, you paid for your ticket. Now take the ride.

The great thing about dividends is that unlike stock buybacks, investors don’t have to sell the goose -- the stock -- that lays the golden eggs.

So which companies are the golden geese?

Looking forward, investors have to do their own research – the information is not hard to find – but Henderson spilled the beans on the best dividend payers of the last two or three years.

Last year, 20 companies were responsible for roughly $1 in every $6 paid in dividends – in other words, these 20 companies paid almost $169 billion between them in dividends last year.

The next best 10 were Microsoft, BP, Chevron, Total, Johnson & Johnson, Nestle, Pfizer, Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline and Procter & Gamble, who paid out $71.6 billion between them in dividends.

Last year, North American companies paid 37 percent of global dividends. Mainland European companies -- despite all the negative macroeconomic headlines about that continent -- coughed up 22 percent. UK corporates paid 11 percent of the total.